With all due apologies to longtime Globe sports columnist Dan Shaugnessy, who would periodically “clean out his desk” by running a column of short bits he had collected, here’s a list, in no particular order, of interesting (to me, anyway) items I took away from ACI’s excellent 8th National Forum on ERISA Litigation in
Tatum v. RJR Pension Investment Committee: What it Teaches About Fiduciary Obligations
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Somehow, RJR Nabisco has always been fascinating, from beginning to now. There must be something about combining tobacco and Oreos that gets the imagination flowing; maybe its the combination of the country’s most regulated consumer product with the wonders of possibly the world’s favorite cookie. Heck, its birth even birthed a book and then, in…
What Should Employees Do in Response to Fifth Third Bancorp?
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in ESOP
The Supreme Court’s decision in Fifth Third Bancorp, concerning the standards for prosecuting stock drop claims involving employer stock held in ERISA governed plans, certainly increased the attention paid to the question of the obligations of plan fiduciaries when it came to the risky holding of employer stock in a plan. But there is…
Why the Supreme Court Got It Right in Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer
By Stephen Rosenberg on
So, where do we even begin with Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer, which is, first, a fascinating decision and, second, one that has already inspired countless stories in both the legal and financial media? I thought I would begin by passing along some of the better commentary I have come across in the wake…
ERISA, the Wisdom of Crowds and the First Hundred Names in the Phonebook
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in ESOP
The wisdom of the crowd, or something else maybe? Susan Mangiero has a wonderful post on something that I probably should have known existed, but did not: an internet site where lawyers and other voyeurs vote on the outcome of pending Supreme Court cases. As Susan notes, the site includes a prediction on a…
What Happens to Company Owners Who Get Overaggressive When Selling Out to an ESOP?
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Just what is it about Chicago and ESOPs? Is it something in the water, redolent of gangsters and Al Capone? First, there was the Sam Zell/Tribune ESOP transaction, which, as I wrote before, was such a complex transaction that, building it around the ownership interests of the employees could not help but raise…
What Does the Moench Presumption Look Like in the Light of the Real World?
By Stephen Rosenberg on
One recurring problem in ERISA litigation is the tendency of courts to address and decide novel and complex issues on motions to dismiss, rather than after allowing full development of the factual record. New and original breach of fiduciary duty theories can look entirely different when considered by courts on the full record than they…
What if Trust Law Cannot Support the Moench Presumption?
By Stephen Rosenberg on
The “stock drop” presumption of Moench, now before the Supreme Court in Fifth Third Bancorp, is best understood as a judicial attempt to balance the sometimes conflicting demands placed on corporate insiders by, on the one hand, the securities laws and, on the other, ERISA, when it comes to employee stock plans in…
Fifth Third Bancorp and the Lack of a Historical Foundation for the Existence of a “Coach Class Trustee”
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in ESOP, Fiduciaries
This is an interesting point, to me anyway, and a point that, for me, falls in that odd space between too short for a good blog post but too long for a tweet. I have written before that, because I seldom use blog posts to simply pass on others’ work and instead usually post substantive…
The First Circuit’s Wary Relationship to the Moench Presumption
By Stephen Rosenberg on
By the way, speaking of Fifth Third Bancorp, I take exception at the assertion (see here, for instance) that every circuit to consider the issue has effectively adopted the Moench presumption, although with some dispute over how and when to apply it. The First Circuit, which tends to favor fact specific resolutions of complex…